The field of the disclosure relates generally to automated asset tracking, and more specifically to methods and systems for automated asset tracking within a vehicle.
Vehicles, such as aircraft, spacecraft, busses, trains, ships, and space stations, often contain many assets within the vehicle that are periodically inventoried, upgraded, and/or replaced. For example, the passenger cabin of a commercial, passenger aircraft often includes numerous items of safety equipment that are inventoried frequently, e.g., after every flight. These assets can include several different types of equipment such as, for example, fire extinguishers, medical kits, flotation devices, and flashlights. The number of pieces of each type of equipment may vary between types of equipment. For example, there may be many more flotation devices than medical kits. Moreover, the number of pieces of equipment of any type of equipment may vary depending on the particular aircraft. For example, the number of pieces of equipment may depend on the maximum number of passengers that the aircraft can transport. Thus, aircraft with larger passenger capacities may include greater numbers of one or more types of equipment. Moreover, the types of equipment may vary depending on the type of aircraft, the types of uses of the aircraft, the operator of the aircraft, etc. Additionally, some of the assets may require periodic maintenance, inspection, replacement, etc. For example, fire extinguishers need to be checked, maintained, and/or replaced periodically. The frequency with which assets need inspection, maintenance, replacement, etc. will often differ from the frequency of inventorying the assets.
Currently, inventorying of assets in vehicles is commonly performed manually. One or more persons traverse through a vehicle and visually check for the expected assets within the vehicle. In a commercial, passenger aircraft for example, flight attendants walk through the passenger cabin visually searching for each flotation device, fire extinguisher, medical kit, flashlight, etc. The flight attendants record the total number of each type of asset located to ensure that the correct number of each type of equipment is located within the aircraft. This record of the inventory may be made on a paper checklist or a computerized checklist. In some operations, the flight attendants may also check assets to determine whether maintenance, repair, or replacement of any asset is needed. For example, the flight attendant may check a maintenance tag attached to a fire extinguisher, a date of manufacture displayed on a flotation device, expiration dates on items in medical kit, etc. In other operations, such inspections may be part of a separate procedure or may be based on data regarding the particular assets in a particular aircraft stored in a remote database. Such manual inspection and inventory procedures may be time consuming, labor intensive, and/or subject to human error.